Not just a fish tale: Angling perfect hobby to enjoy the outdoors during COVID-19

Mount Pearl, NL resident Jackie Pope, wearing her lucky skirt, hooks a keeper while her buddy walks back to the car for extra hooks. - Contributed

American author and angler Alfred Miller (who wrote under the pen name Sparse Grey Hackle) once said, “Soon after I embraced the sport of angling I became convinced that I should never be able to enjoy it if I had to rely on the cooperation of the fish."

Whether baiting her hook, catching a trout, cleaning her catch, lighting a fire, frying up a feed of bacon, bologna, and beans or reheating left-over Jiggs dinner, Jackie Pope enjoys every aspect of her trouting trips.

For this Mount Pearl, N.L., woman, even the pathway to the pond is a feeling like no other.

From pitcher plants to rabbits scurrying in the woods, the beauty of nature isn’t something this avid angler takes for granted.

Pope enjoys trouting with a friend rather than alone. While she’s had to make some changes - because there is currently a province-wide ban on open fires in Newfoundland due to COVID-19, Pope takes a small propane burner with her to cook food and boil water for tea – it’s an activity she can still do now while social distancing measures are in place.

For Jackie Pope, a mug-up is an important part of her trouting trips.

Longtime love

Her adventures go back decades. By age five, she was at pondside with her father and siblings.

As a single parent raising her daughter, she didn’t get to wet a line as often as she’s been doing in recent years. She has more time now and loves nothing more than preparing for a trouting trip.

While Pope agrees that the catch is just one part of the adventure, hooking a trout brings with it a feeling that is hard to describe, she said.

Jackie Pope is delighted with her catch. She enjoys ice fishing as well, making trouting a multi-season activity for her.

Pope doesn’t scream these days when she gets a bite, but that wasn’t always the case.

She recalls a day trip during the winter several years ago, when she put her line down through the hole in the ice and pulled up her first trout of the season.

“I did a big yoo-hoo, I was so excited. About an hour later, this group of guys on the other side of the pond … all of a sudden, I heard this big yoo-hoo. They must have gotten a trout and they were making fun of me,” Pope laughs.

Exercise and adventure

Pope has fished ponds along the Trans Canada Highway near her home and has also taken longer road trips to one of her favourite ponds.

She recalls how, after an hour-and-a-half drive and a 40-minute walk in the woods, she and her friend were finally pondside, rods ready for the adventure that awaited them.

“I casted out and right away, I lost my hook. I went over to my buddy and asked him where the extra hooks were. He said he’d forgotten to bring them.”

Pope was as frustrated as a fisherwoman who had just let a two-pound brook trout slip through her hands.

Her friend suggested he would walk back to the car and get the hooks. In the meantime, he offered his fishing rod to her to use.

“He wasn’t out of sight when I felt this tug on my line. I thought I must have the bottom. But then I started to reel it in and there was this beauty,” Pope recalled.

Pope’s yarns aren’t mere fishing tales. She has pictures to back up her stories – photos that are indeed worth a thousand words.

Low-cost activity

For Pope, trouting is her passion. She could never afford to golf or participate in other sports that require an investment in equipment or money to play, she said.

When it comes to trouting, she doesn’t have an ATV, boat, or any special fishing gear. A drop of gas for her vehicle, a rod, line, hook, and worm are all it takes to catch a meal for herself, a friend, or someone else she knows who would relish a fish fry.

“This is a hobby that I love so much. And the good thing about it is it’s free.”

Pope even digs her own worms in her garden.

While trouting is an inexpensive hobby, Pope is grateful to her great-uncle, who passed his fishing gear along to her several years ago.

“He gave his basket, flies, hooks, everything he had, God love him.”

Frying up a feed of bacon, bologna, and beans is an important part of every fishing trip for Newfoundlander Jackie Pope.

Pope has her own ice auger and has no problem drilling the holes, making it a multi-season activity.

And it’s one all ages can enjoy. Pope has introduced her grandson, Mason, to her love of trouting. She has a photo of the child, sitting on a plastic milk carton, his line and hook down through a hole in the ice. Her grandson, who is now eight years old, was five at the time, she said.

Pope’s pictures also prove it’s not unusual for her to take a nap in the woods. It’s been known to happen when the trout are scarce, she laughs.

Now that the angling season is open in her area, Pope will likely spend many of her days off work by the side of a pond with her fishing rod in hand and her knapsack nearby, filled with everything needed for a successful trip - extra hooks included.

“I have my lucky fishing skirt and I’ve got this bright pink lipstick that I wear as a joke. It’s my lucky fish lipstick,” she laughs.

Jackie Pope has often taken a nap in the woods when the trout aren’t biting.